Installation

The bumper on our F-450 is massive. With a channel shape of cold rolled and stamped steel alloy our 12,000 winch wouldn’t even flex it. Unfortunately it is held on with four puny screws. You can bash into things all you want; just don’t pull on it too hard. We remedied that by buying a six inch channel to fasten to the frame behind the bumper and mounting the winch through the bumper with longer, hardened bolts than those supplied. If you have a newer truck you can probably find a custom solution just for your truck, but it’ll cost as much as the winch.

You should not double the recovery rope through a snatch block and back to your winch mount. If you do you will be doubling the strain on your winch mount; it should be hooked back to the frame. We bolted a 12,000 tow hook to the underside of a frame member of our truck.

Electrical

You will have to refer to the instructions that came with your winch for electrical connections. If you are connecting dissimilar metals together IE. aluminum to copper, it is a good idea to use anti-oxidant paste (from an electrical supplier) on the connections. Don’t splice feed lines to the winch; connections that develop resistance can rob you of a lot of power, and the current that isn’t getting to your winch motor is heating up the connections or cable. If the supplied cable isn’t long enough you will likely need a heavier wire gauge cable. Make all electrical connections absolutely tight and check them regularly for tightness and corrosion.

Recovery

Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)

You should already be wearing all of the following if you are using a bucket truck:

Safety glasses – protect your eyes from flying debris, battery acid or a broken winch rope.

Leather gloves – are an absolute must when handling any kind of winch rope, especially wire.

Leather boots – provide far more protection for your feet than canvas sneakers or low shoes.

Work clothing – should fit comfortably and not have any loose parts than can get snagged.

Rigging

The U.S. Army has a great 100 page training manual on rigging – Field Manual 5-125. Even if you have a good understanding of wire rope and pulleys you may not know how much weight different soil types support (it’s in there). You can find the PDF for download on many sites.

The most important safety tip is: STAND FAR ENOUGH AWAY that the full length of your rigging cannot strike you no matter where it breaks while performing a recovery operation. The second safety tip is: doubling your wire rope back to your vehicle with a snatch block DOUBLES THE POWER OF YOUR WINCH. All rigging components must support twice the capacity of your winch. A safety margin is built into chain, shackles, hooks, etc. – their working rating is several times smaller than their breaking point.

Run your rigging in direct line with the X axis of your vehicle (front to back). I’ve pulled cars back onto the road sideways in the winter, but a bucket truck ain’t a car. You’ll see examples of snatch blocks used to change the direction of pull, but that would be an exception for a bucket truck. You might give this consideration when you are backing into a questionable spot. Rigging a snatch block to change direction of pull creates a dangerous situation – if the rigging fails the ten pound snatch block and heavier shackle will be flung in almost any direction.

Wrap your tow strap around a suitable tree. Keep in mind that I have ripped out 4 inch trees with our little 3,000 lb. tractor and knock down 6 inch trees with a 7,500 lb. compact diesel front end loader. The type of soil and how wet it is will make a lot of difference. The closer you place the strap to the ground the less likely you are to uproot the tree. (I place chains or the loader bucket up as high as possible to remove a tree, often excavating the roots.) If you are doubling the tow strap, slip a shackle through both loops. Our tow strap can  also be passed through the loop on one end of the strap in order to use the entire length of the tow strap; yours may be different.

If you are doubling back your winch rope, pass it through the snatch block and run the shackle clevis pin through the clevis and snatch block; tighten it with a wrench. Shackles are rated for the force which will deform them; the breaking force will be many times higher. The tighter the shackle pin is the less likely it will be for the shackle to deform.

For lighter recovery operations you can simply hook the winch rope hook directly onto the tow strap, or preferably a shackle. DO NOT HOOK THE WINCH HOOK BACK ONTO THE WINCH ROPE; doing so will damage the wire rope. Remember that the full power of your winch is not achieved until the winch cable has been spooled out to the last layer of rope; the fourth (top) layer will have almost half the power that the winch is rated for.

Winching

Leave both manual transmissions and automatic transmissions in NEUTRAL. This is important even if you are preforming a recovery on another vehicle. Block all four wheels and put the parking brake on if you are recovering another vehicle. When you see your wheel chocks digging into the ground you’ll understand how easy it would be to break the parking pawl off in your transmission. If you are dead-manning with another vehicle make sure that vehicle is in neutral; you don’t want to damage a friends vehicle. Use only brakes and chocks. I used a concrete truck sideways as a deadman once but most suspensions aren’t designed for that.

Start your engine. A large winch will deplete your battery in minutes. A 400 amp winch draws more current than our starter motor. That’s why it is important to check your electrical connections regularly; do it now! If your cables barely fit when new, imagine having to cut six inches of crystallized copper off an end because a connection became loose.

Take up the slack while you guide the winch rope onto the drum so it starts off evenly. Insure that the rope is not going to pile up on one side of the drum if at all possible.

Move far enough away from the rigging that you will not be struck if something fails. Make sure all bystanders also understand that they must not stand anywhere near the recovery operation.

Watch your winch rope while spooling in. If it piles up too much on one side you may have to chock the wheels, spool out some rope and re-spool the excess so it lies in tight, even layers. If the vehicle hasn’t straightened out enough it may be necessary to repeat this process.

Stop immediately if your winch stalls; don’t ‘jog’ it in an attempt to get it started again or to free a binding cable. Read your winch manual to see how to free a binding cable. Stop and wait several minutes if your winch gets too hot to hold your hand on. The duty cycle of winch motors is too dependent on conditions for manufacturers to publish it; just don’t run your electric winch motor until you burn it up; you may find a replacement motor does not perform as well as your old reliable original (just sayin’). If you can keep your hand on the motor you should be OK.

When you are done, free-spool the cable out, wipe your rope clean and dry while re-tensioning it. If it isn’t dirty wipe wire ropes with a rag soaked in oil.

Safety

Read your winch manual, FM 5-125 and this guide until you thoroughly understand what you are doing.

Inspect your winch, mount, rigging and electrical connections before use.

Stand far enough away that the full length of your rigging cannot strike you no matter where it breaks; never stand in line with the rigging.

Doubling your wire rope back to your vehicle with a snatch block doubles the power of your winch. All components must be sized accordingly.

Wear leather gloves while handling wire rope and keep your rope like new.

Do not hook the winch hook back onto the winch rope, it will damage the rope; that would be a bad place for your rigging to break.

Use a heavy dampener such as a large throw rug or floppy rug remnant over the middle of the winch rope to dampen it in case of a failure.

Avoid sudden shocks to the rigging; a shock load can damage your winch.

If your winch rope binds between wraps in a lower layer be careful freeing it; spooling out a binding rope can cause a sudden shock load.

Stop immediately and determine the cause if your winch stalls. Stop and wait five to ten minutes if your winch gets too hot to hold your hand on.

Keep the hood of your vehicle closed while preforming a recovery. Under severe conditions an overheated battery can explode. Sulphuric acid can disfigure or blind you! Wash it off immediately with copious amounts of water.